GROUSE. 143 



We get a few more shots, and then the beaters arrive, the 

 retrievers are unslipped, the slain picked up, after which we 

 walk in line over some rough ground, where the dogs find 

 another bird or two and put up a lowland hare which our 

 host stops in workmaiily style. 



At the next broken-down dyke we disperse again to our 

 posts, spending the interval, while the beaters walk round 

 the moor, in adding to the screens as our fancy suggests, 

 *ind making our seats comfortable in the manner set by our 

 luxurious friend the Assam planter, whose first care at every 

 stand is a springy nest of heather, on which he reclines in 

 bliss until the birds arrive. Again the same sort of process 

 is gone through, and a rather long wait well rewarded by 

 a rush of grouse, mixed with small bodies of blackgame, 

 hares, and squadrons of shrieking plovers, when the beaters 

 get within feel of the enemy. 



The cannonading is soon brisk up and down the line 

 the two young gentlemen in tartans getting a little " off their 

 heads " with excitement, and showing themselves freely (a 

 great mistake in grouse driving), sweep the neighbourhood 

 with their well-served guns, while " Uncle P.," who, by a 

 judicious and philanthropical foresight of the head keeper, is 

 always their companion, far away down on the left, also 

 gets a "wee bit daft," burning much powder with great 

 satisfaction to himself but little effect on the bag. We up 

 in the centre, however, behave ourselves with decorum, never 

 firing at any birds but our own, and carefully making a 

 mental note of where such of them as we may bring down 

 will be found when the beaters come up. I have heard of 

 this latter matter being settled in a very cut-and-dried 

 manner with the help of a pencil and sheet of cardboard, 

 the latter being divided by lines into quarters, with a circle 

 where the divisions meet in the centre to represent the stand ; 

 the shooter carries a supply about with him, and, dividing 

 his neighbourhood at every drive into imaginary portions, 

 marks with the pencil as nearly as he can the vicinity of 



